The Chesapeake Bay Bridge, a seemingly innocuous system of transport, an innocent way to funnel people across the Chesapeake Bay. Or a way to cause pain and fear and terror. Things began to look up when we found ourselves lost in Norfolk, but Jen’s intrepid navigation skills sent us in the right direction. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel is a 3078 mile expanse of precariously built bridges and obviously suspect tunnels. To add insult to terrifying injury, they charge you $10 to enter this dimension of confusion. It took us about 57 hours to cross this thing and when we exited, I discovered I had chewed the lining off the doors in the car. Sorry, Jen.
More time spent in Virginia, buying ham and bacon and boiled peanuts and having a terrible time finding lunch. We searched forever and just could not find anything for lunch that seemed both tasty and unique. Eventually, I turned the wrong way down a one way street, drove over a curb and found myself sobbing and swearing in a KFC parking lot. Jen took over driving again and picked up some chicken for lunch. It wasn’t good, but at 2 in the afternoon after eating nothing all day, second-rate fast food chicken tasted like…well, second rate chicken, but it kept me from eating my own foot.
The chicken in my stomach calmed my nerves so that I was set for the next surprise of the day: yet another trip over the Chesapeake Bay. What few people know about me is that I have a fear of heights and I have a fear of open water, so high bridges over water can reduce me to a shivering mass. I knew there would be some bridges on my trip, but I certainly did not realize to what extent the citizens of the east coast would decide to enbridge the area. And what I don’t understand is why they choose the widest point to build the bridges over and after that build the bridges so high that the car hovers in the mesosphere causing a marked lack of oxygen and eventual motor control loss. Now I was faced with another bridge over more water, and now it was rush hour and the bridge was crowded and the traffic crawled. I think it will take weeks for my ass to unclench. On the other side of the bridge lay Annapolis and the US Naval Academy.
Annapolis was pretty and crowded and like everything else, was oozing with history and sushi restaurants. I got out the map and located the general vicinity of our hotel in DC and tried to find the quickest route there. What I learned was that while the city streets are laid out and easy to drive, the freeways of DC are a confusing mass. There was no way to get from 295 to 395 without pulling my navel inside out. After a few colorful expressions and a couple of u-turns, we found ourselves at the hotel.
Our room was on the 10th floor and as we opened the curtains we were greeted with a fabulous view of the city. Across the freeway was the Pentagon, and, from left to right, the Lincoln Memorial, The White House, The Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial. We marveled for about 7 minutes and then got down to the business of showers and laundry and unpacking. Refreshed and relaxed, we headed out to meet my pleasant and witty friend for dinner. Yes, this friend is truly a fine specimen of friendliness even if he does try to convince me that he is an asshole.
The meal was at Papa Razzi’s in Georgetown. The food was tasty, but the service lacked a certain skill in math. I was offered one beer at the beginning of the evening. We sat there for 5 hours that night and talked and laughed and had a good time. He never came back to offer me another beer. In 5 hours I can consume about 5 beers and that comes to about $25 on the bill and at 20% that would get you another $5 on the tip. But what can I say? He saved me from a beer bloat and I saved him from unneccesary tax headaches later this year.

Up very early. Very, very early. And this is a little town. So little that Starbucks has not yet invaded, so I do not get my usual 3 shots of espresso masked in milk, ice, and hazelnut syrup. Everyone we asked told us that it would take 90 minutes to go 40 miles. In the rest of the world this would seem absurd, but since we were in the time -travel twilight zone, we decided to trust them. Fools we are. It takes about 40 minutes to go 40 miles, even here. The drive was very pretty, right along the shore for most of it. We even had a nature moment as we drove around a bend and came upon a black bear loping across the road, very exciting for two city girls. We also saw many rabbits, and I wondered if the bear ever ate a rabbit, and if he liked it.
We got to the Cedar Island ferry with about an hour to spare, so we occupied ourselves exploring the beach. I found beetle tracks and bird tracks and pointed them out to Jen who expressed the appropriate amount of interest. Our next nature moment happened with the attack of the kamikaze beach bees. These are some sort of mutant bees that desperately search the beach in vain for flowering plants with nectar. They are so diligent in this fruitless search that they thoroughly investigate everything, even the people. And though bees have a special dance to tell other bees of the lack of food found, this group had not yet been taught. Each and every bee had to come over and angrily buzz all over me, inducing a standard panic response. I fought my instinct to cover my head and fall to the ground whimpering, as I figured that would only alarm the other ferry passengers waiting up at the gift shop. I did not scream, swipe or blow at the bee, as I know these are all ways to make a bee want to kill you hard with his poky ass. Bored with the beach, we returned to our car and waited to board the ferry.
I’ve never been on a car ferry, and this was pretty damned cool. First of all, everyone who worked on the Cedar Island Ferry was exceptionally pleasant and ‘Enrique’ stood out for being both pleasant and hot. Thanks for the entertainment, Enrique. We sat outside for a long time and watched the ocean go by and when the sun got too hot we went in and wrote postcards. Some of you got these nifty postcards, the rest of you will learn to suffer in silence. We mistakenly assumed that the ferry would feed us, but it did not. So we were left with trying to entertain ourselves without having eaten breakfast. Outside to watch the ocean, inside to watch the people, repeat as necessary.
We landed at Ocracoke Island (which is a lot of fun to say, Ocracoke, Ocracoke) and marvelled at its utter cuteness and headed up to the Hatteras Ferry. The Hatteras Ferry was staffed completely by people who hated other people and had no reason to hide this hatred. Luckily, it only takes 30 minutes to get from Ocracoke (Ocracoke, Ocracoke) to Hatteras. We found a little place on the beach and ate lunch (mmm, shrimp) and watch the ocean and made fun of most people. Afterwards, we saw the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, which has a long and colorful history which I am sure fills people with an excitement I can only pretend to understand. I took a picture and left.
We drove up the Outer Banks and marvelled at its beauty and at its narrowness and continued northward. We saw houses on stilts and wondered what people did with their cars during storms so bad that stilts are necessary to protect your house.
The northern part of the Outer Banks are more touristy and commercial, but Kitty Hawk is there and if you are not tired or bored, you can go see the place where the Wright Brothers learned to fly. Woo.
At this point, my late bedtime and my early rise and my lack of caffeine kicked in and I was too tired to drive anymore. Jen took over, we popped in a Tool CD, and I took a nap. She woke me in time to visit the most redneck gift shop ever put together. You could purchase any item imaginable with the confederate flag (provided, of course, that it was not so technologically advanced that it confused the poor bubbas. I’m not kidding here, they had confederate flags on everything, and you would think that mouse pads would seem like a natural idea, but no, there were no mouse pads available). I spent about 10 minutes in this shop but could no longer maintain my sanity and had to leave.
We headed into Virginia Beach and back to civilization. Virginia Beach was crazy busy and it took us forever to get down Atlantic Avenue to our hotel. It did not help that the AAA guide was incorrectly marked and it took us longer to get to our hotel than it should have. Feh. Our hotel room was located on the ground floor and you could open the back door in the room and step directly onto the beachfront. At first we were slightly disappointed that we did not have a balcony, but a few minutes out on the lawn next to the beach and were were happier with our situation than we would have been with a balcony. Had sushi for dinner and came back to explore the giant jacuzzi in the room. Then we stepped outside, sat on our patio and watched fireworks. I have not seen fireworks in 10 years, and I felt like a kid all over again.
A long but fun day, and it is time for bed.

Up in the morning and back into Charleston for the City Market, a protected open-air market for vendors to hawk their wares. It’s really everything you want in a city market: covered from the sun, huge diversity in products, a bustling and movement that you just don’t see in other places. The spotlight in South Carolina is on sweetgrass baskets made by the local women. The baskets are handwoven and beautifully designed, and these women know how to haggle. I did not purchase one of these baskets because they were just out of my price range for baskets. This is not to say they are not worth the prices charged, they are. They just cost more than I can comfortably justify for something that won’t get much use in my house.
A quick and pleasant drive up the coast got us to Georgetown, SC. This is one of those small towns with some sort of historical significance, but at this point everything I have seen is just oozing with humidity and history and it all sounds about the same. Lunch at The Rice Paddy, a trendy little spot with good crabcakes and sweet iced tea. During lunch, a cockroach the size of a VW Vanagon came cruising by on the windowframe. Now, be assured he was in fact on the outside looking in at me, but it was still a disconcerting experience to see a bug larger than my own vehicle looking in the window at me, begging for a bite of crab or a sip of tea. I sat quietly and watched his movement around the windowframe while still trying to look as though I can’t actually see him asking me for a piece of pie and a cup of coffee. Now, I know that in the south they try to make things seem more genteel, so they give things new names: your wife is called kin; under-educated, truck driving racist assholes are called rednecks; and gigantic,thunderous cockroaches from hell are called palmetto bugs. Here in the north (Yes, Cletus, I did see the bumper sticker on your Ford that expressed that you did not care how things were done in the north. Just crawl on back to your cousin, I have things to explain here) we call a cockroach a cockroach because it is a cockroach. We can not make up lies about something just to hide the fact that it is an epidemic. We have winter up here and it kills off many of the outdoor bugs each year. You don’t, so they just continue to grow and grow and grow and eventually are given their own express lane on the freeway and special discount cards at Krispy Kreme. God, I hate cockroaches. I hate them. And I hate how calm you are about the one thing that will survive the next major extinction event.
Anyway.
Up to the family vacation spot and ‘Branson East’, Myrtle Beach. The big moneymakers in MB are the ‘free’ hermit crabs, mini-golf and outlet malls. It’s all about the family in MB, and I couldn’t escape fast enough. Unfortunately, traffic conspired against us and it took us 76 hours to move 32 feet. I combined common swear words with obscure body parts to create new and exciting ways to express my displeasure with the situation.
Eventually I got past the pecan logs, the peaches, and the fireworks stands and found myself at the world’s tackiest gift shop ever. Not Wall Drug, even better: SOUTH OF THE BORDER! 24 buildings make up this complex of gift-buying fun. Presents were picked for friends, and then we entered a zone of mystery and confusion and the world became a different place. We went into the adult toy section (The Dirty Old Man Shop) and decided to pick out a special souvenir to commemorate the trip. Features were balanced against price, and a toy was chosen. The somewhat elderly but decidedly no-nonsense cashier was ready to help us at the counter. She surprised us by opening the package, showing us how to insert the batteries, and demonstrating its settings to us. This woman could have been my grandmother. Satisfied, she popped out the batteries and completed the sale with a smile. Not the creepy smile of someone who is thinking about what you will be doing later that evening, but the warm, gentle smile of a person who takes pride in her work, even if her work involves the secret pleasures of others.
The ride out of South Carolina and into North Carolina was not noteworthy except that, like Texas, distances and time in North Carolina are deeply warped and the problem is exacerbated by low speed limits. I have noticed that the states with little or nothing to offer me near the roadside seem to have the slowest speed limits. I think this is some sort of special torture just for me, just like people with no cruise control. Look, if you don’t have cruise control and you are somehow mentally incapable of maintaining a consistent speed, then once I have passed you, don’t speed up and pass me and get in front of me and slow down. I have cruise control and anyone who has ridden in the car with me can testify that I would rather eat my own femur than switch off the cruise, so I can guarantee that I am staying at the same speed (generally 9 miles over). You don’t have to prove your dick size to me by trying to race my car. First of all, your dick is pointless to me, I just bought a substitute from a woman who understands doily patterns and secondly, your dick is of little concern when you are driving a car with no cruise control and no air conditioning. I am not going to think “He drives faster than me. He must be a good mate, and I won’t let his poor car-buying choices detract from his obvious skills at erratic velocity maintenance.” If you don’t have cruise control, just let me pass you and be off, because after awhile I can’t be held responsible for what I do to you or your brethren.
Our goal was Morehead City, NC, and as I stated it was taking forever. I mean absolutely forever. Time and distance were being calculated in relation to infinity. We eventually got to Wilmington, NC, where we stopped at a place called Kiva for dinner. The food was good, and I had a lot of fun noting the hatred the husband had for his wife at the table next to ours. I hated her too, and I secretly wished him luck in dealing with this nasal beast.
15,000 hours later we finally made it to Morehead City and would have been excited by our view of the ocean, but it was late and we had to get up in the morning and drive 90 minutes to catch the 8am ferry the next day. So there was no fun for us, just sleep.

Woke up in Savannah and I could still smell the ocean all around me. I fought the urge to cancel the rest of the trip and just stay there by the inviting shore. The thing most attractive about Tybee Island is how empty it was. Later I will be in Virginia Beach, and I know that will just be mobbed with hormone-crazed college boys, harassed mothers and vapid girlies with poor bikini choices.
But I pressed on.
At this point, I was getting pretty damned tired of getting out of the car in various southern spots and trying not to scream “what is that SMELL?”. I am reminded that the eastern US is built on a green O-Cello sponge, warm and moist, without a winter to inhibit the growth of things that smell.
First stop in the morning (after coffee, which shouldn’t have to be mentioned, as it is as functional as washing my face), was the Savannah historical museum and visitors center. It smelled funny and there was a movie that I did not watch. I spent much time in the gift shop and purchased a book of pirate stickers that now adorn the postcards being sent. If you want a postcard, send me your address. If I get it while I am still on the road, I will send you one.
A walking tour of Savannah was next and we hit most of the major historical houses and squares. We drove by the Factor’s Walk on the river front, but the humidity had beaten us down sufficiently and we let it go.
Our next stop was Hilton Head. The place was mobbed, but we just drove through to get an idea of what it is like. Stopped at a deli on the mainland, Vino and Vitto, and picked up a sandwich as big as my forearm. Damned tasty sandwich. Hilton Head was not anything to write home about, so I didn’t.
We swung through Beaufort, SC, and took pictures of historical things and read about wars and defiance and pondered again the amazing smells borne of the unbelievable humidity.
We got lost trying to get out of Beaufort and ended up by Parris Island. We had been island-hopping all day, and decided to check this one out, too. We followed the signs to Parris Island and whipped off the highway and into a giant military base. Something in my head clicked and I sort of remembered something about military and Parris Island (or was it an insane asylum?), but I just couldn’t make the connection. Because of the holiday, all military bases were on Alert: Bravo. This meant that they checked all ID’s coming in and had absolutely no sense of humor about tourists accidentally showing up on base. Rodriguez was polite but humorless about the whole thing and directed me back to the highway.
Finally, we arrived in Charleston, exhausted and sweaty. Our hotel room smelled of urine and had a sticky quality hard to come by in your own home. We rested for a minute, gathered our thoughts and headed out downtown for a walking tour of the historic houses.The AAA guide for Charleston warned us against driving in this city because its roads are a clusterfuck maze of narrow one-way streets that inexplicably end in the middle of a block. You will find one direction repeated multiple times before you get a chance to go the other way. We got lost and cursed all who designed this city. Then we found parking and started our little tour. Each of the historic houses, though a private residence, is clearly labelled with the name of the house and the history attached to it. We walked down to the waterfront to watch seagulls and pelicans and the coast guard do their things. White Point Park was full of pigeons quietly waiting for me to feed them, but they never got the chance as a family erroneously decided the best activity for the evening was to run around with the pigeons and pretend to fly like them, scaring them half out of their wits. First it’s two pleasant Minnesotans crumbling Keebler Club Crackers on the ground, then a swarm of giant avi-humans swoop in with the sole purpose of making them go away. Pigeons have it tough.
Back to the car and off to dinner. Too tired and hungry to really try to think about dinner, we ended up at a chain rib place that fed us well and kept me supplied with beer.
Tomorrow Georgetown, SC, South of the Border and Morehead City.

If there are days better than today, I just don’t know if I can handle them. The morning started out with us driving around Atlanta. Sightseeing and basically taking advantage of our out-of-state plates and blocking traffic, stopping where we shouldn’t and being foolish. Atlanta is a beautiful city, so very mush to see. Nothing more exciting than the fight we saw between Wolf Blitzer and Larry King outside CNN this morning. Okay, we didn’t see the fight, but we saw CNN and it was pretty nifty.
Atlanta is a charming city with pleasant, accomodating people. However, I have one request: Atlanta needs to clearly label its streets so I don’t get so damned lost. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t have a map, but if I can’t match the picture to the streets, then the whole system falls apart.
After downtown Atlanta, we visited the Martin Luther King Jr. Center. It’s a very beautiful, peaceful place, and in visiting it you are reminded that there are so very few of us that actually do anything that makes a difference.
The next stop was Juliette, GA, home of the Whistle Stop Cafe, made famous by the movie, “Fried Green Tomatoes”. This town is pretty much one block and its entire industry is the tourists that stop by to see the cafe. I could sit for hours and listen to them talk and talk. A special thanks to the gentleman that offered to take our picture together.
Macon was much bigger than I remembered, and certainly less redneck. Lunch at Len Berg’s in the alley behind the courthouse. Highly recommended. The food was great, the service was a bit slow but charming and the whole place was just weird enough to a northerner like myself to keep me amused. Now I don’t mean that this is recommended in that sort of “I recommend pants with legs” sort of way, but in an “Oxygen is good for your brain” way. When you are in Macon, you will be tempted to stop at one of those crap-filled chain restaurants like Chili’s or Cracker Barrel, but don’t. Make a little effort, drive into town. You’ll find the courthouse, go down the back alley and there it is. Now don’t think “eeeuw, back alley”, think “distinctively charming”. This is one of the best places you will ever eat.
One point to keep in mind: I ordered iced tea and she asked me “Sweetened or unsweetened?” in her perfectly-timed drawl. I chose sweetened, thinking that it would save me the 32 seconds it takes to pour sugar in the glass, and assuming that sweetened meant that it was as sweet as iced tea purchased in a bottle at a humid gas station just off the interstate. One sip of the iced tea and I learned differently. This beverage pretty much peels the enamel off your teeth and makes a Caramello taste like vinegar. I had to squeeze many lemons into it to make it drinkable. After 3 glasses, though, I found it to be highly addictive and it’s really all I want now.
The meal itself came with the softest, sweetest biscuits and little deep-fried cornbread sticks. Heaven. The meals themselves were simple and tasty, without pretense.
Beyond Macon, down to Savannah, you drive down an incredibly lush, verdant corridor. Pretty much solid trees on both sides of the freeway, and the scent is intoxicating. Slowly, the land dipped lower and lower until we reached marshland and Savannah. The car gave us quite a scare by chugging and flipping on the ‘Check Engine’ light, but that was quickly resolved by getting some gas and caressing the hood slowly, telling her she was really a good car, the only car for us, yeah baby, none of the other cars got what you have…
Quickly check into the hotel and pop over to Tybee Island and the ocean. THE OCEAN! I live in Minnesota, we don’t have the ocean. It was warm and gentle and inviting and the first thing I did was call everyone on my cell phone to brag about my oceanic adventure. After 90 minutes of jumping around in the surf, I went and sat in the sand with the sun setting on my back and the ocean beating the beach in front of me. Dinner at a restaurant right on the beach. Jerk pork, too many beers and the salt drying on my face. Highway 80 back into Savannah with the sunroof open and the cool breeze on me.
More perfect than anything.
Tomorrow, Downtown Savannah, Hilton Head, Beaufort, and Charleston.